Ruth Dorothy Louisa (“Wid”) Gipps MBE (20 February 1921 – 23 February 1999) was an English composer, oboist, pianist, conductor and educator. She composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos and many chamber and choral works.
Just fifteen years ago, piles of sheet music and writings were discovered in an abandoned house slated for demolition. Inside were dozens of unpublished scores, including a symphony and two violin concertos. The house had been the summer residence of Florence Price, a child prodigy who was valedictorian at 14 and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. She was a pianist, organist, teacher, and composer who had written over 300 pieces of music: four symphonies, four concertos, choral works, vocal work, chamber music, and solo pieces, as well as popular songs. She achieved a degree of success, but during her lifetime she faced challenges in achieving recognition and performance opportunities due to racial and gender bias. Despite that, her “Symphony in E minor” was performed by the Chicago Symphony orchestra in 1933, making her the first Black woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra.
The Second Violin Concerto, completed a year before her death (and later found in the abandoned house), was written in a single movement in the form of a rhapsody. It is framed in the western classical structure, combining lyrical romanticism, impressionist harmonies, and elements of West African and African American spiritual and dance traditions. It is a compact single movement work, richly orchestrated, with contrasting motivic sections and bravura solo violin passages.
As Antonin Dvorak had incorporated folk and national elements into his music, Price, along with other composers of the time, sought to further expand the classical canon with a fusion of traditional and vernacular. Alex Ross, in the New Yorker, wrote, “This terse, beguiling piece has an autumnal quality reminiscent of the final works of Richard Strauss. It deserves to be widely heard.”
Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Concerto was jointly commissioned by the Library of Congress, the Nashville Symphony, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Aspen Music Festival. It premiered March 7, 2015 at the Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C., with conductor Robert Spano leading violist Roberto Díaz (playing a Stradivarius viola) and the Curtis Chamber Orchestra. The work won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
Usually embedded in the orchestra, the viola is pitched between the violin and cello. In the Viola Concerto it takes center stage. Higdon made a concerted effort to make her concerto very “up” and lively, as these are qualities not normally associated with the viola and not present in many other viola concertos. Weaving virtuosic lines into the entire orchestra, she also explores the viola’s lower ranges, darker colors, and the best speeds to take the instrument. Higdon made a conscious effort to write something that, in her own words, “sounded really American,” as the concerto was commissioned by several American institutions.
Listen in the First Movement for the low, lyrical melodies in the solo viola, ethereal textures in the orchestra, and dialogues with orchestra members, including clarinet and violin. In the Second Movement, the orchestra is in “perpetual motion” reminiscent of Barber (another American composer, famous for his Violin Concerto.) The orchestra zigs and zags in dotted, jazzy, darting lines, and the percussionist has an especially virtuosic part, playing many different instruments. Movement 3 opens with a plaintive brass chorale, but returns to the themes of the second movement. Listen for a “trio” between the solo viola and principal violin and cello. After hearing this concerto, you’ll know that the viola isn’t just “a big violin!”
— D. Rosen and A. J. Edelstein
This is one of Bach’s most popular and well-known instrumental concertos. While its original composition date is unknown, recent scholarship points to a composition date of 1730-31, during his tenure at Leipzig. The concerto is scored for two solo violins, strings and continuo. It is written in the typical three movements of baroque concertos – a fast opening movement, a slow middle movement, and a lively third movement. Bach weaves his themes in contrapuntal style between the orchestral and the two soloists. The concerto’s texture varies between full orchestra passages and solo passages, which alternate between the two soloists. The second movement adagio is a lyrical duet between the two soloists, accompanied by a harmonic orchestral choir.
This work is part of a collection of six “Brandenburg Concertos” written by Bach in the early 18th century, probably between 1708 and 1721. While probably not conceived as a unitary set of works, Bach gathered all of them together and sent them, together with a dedication, to the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1721 (evidently in pursuit of a musical position). While his job search didn’t pan out, his Brandenburg concerti – only rediscovered in the Brandenburg library and published in 1850 – have since become world-famous.
Each of the concerti is scored for a different combination of string and wind instruments. Brandenburg Concerto No.3 is scored for strings and continuo (cembalo), but with a twist – there are three separate parts for each section (violins, violas and cellos), together with a unifying bass and cembalo part. The result is an intriguing combination of unified orchestral playing interspersed with separate solo lines. Bach himself is said to have played the first viola part in this work, leading the ensemble from that position.
The first movement’s vigorous opening is the basis for all of the other melodic and contrapuntal elements in the movement, with motifs traded back and forth between and within violins, violas, and cellos. For the second movement, Bach only wrote two long chords to be played by the strings. While occasionally played that way, another view is that he intended an improvisatory passage to be played leading into those chords, either by a solo violin or solo keyboard. For today’s performance we have adapted a short passage from a Bach keyboard work to be played on the harpsichord as a bridge to the last movement. The concluding allegro is a rollicking gigue-like dance featuring non-stop contrapuntal lines among the string sections, with notable violin and viola solos.
Czech composer Johann Baptist Vanhal (or Wanhal) lived from 1739 to 1813. He was born in Nechanice, Bohemia, and died in Vienna, where he spent most of his life. Vanhal was well-known among the Viennese composers of his era, and his music was respected by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. He was a prolific composer, with 100 string quartets, at least 73 symphonies, 95 sacred works, and a large number of instrumental and vocal works attributed to him. He was also an accomplished instrumentalist, and on a memorable occasion in 1784 played string quartets with Haydn, Dittersdorf, and Mozart.
Vanhal’s bass concerto is one of the best-known Viennese concerti for this instrument and is in the tradition of other works for bass composed by Dittersdorf, Hoffmeister, Pichl and Sperger. While the exact date of its composition is not known, it was possibly written in 1773. The orchestral parts were preserved in manuscript form by Johann-Matthias Sperger, a pre-eminent Viennese bass soloist.
The concerto is in a typical three-movement form, written in classical style. The movements consist of an opening allegro moderato, in sonata form; a second movement adagio, with extended lyrical bass melodies; and a lively allegro in rondo form, featuring elegant solo passagework. In all three movements the solo bass music is virtuosic, exploring its tonal possibilities and spanning the entire range of the instrument.
Shostakovich wrote the work for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who committed it to memory in four days and gave the premiere on October 4, 1959, with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in the Large Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory. — Wikipedia
Dvořák composed his violin concerto, a masterpiece of the romantic concerto literature, in 1879. He was inspired to write it after meeting the great violinist Joseph Joachim, to whom he had been introduced by Johannes Brahms. Dvořák sent the initial manuscript to Joachim, who suggested a number of changes to it, particularly in the solo part, and Dvořák subsequently revised it. However, Joachim never performed the concerto, possibly on account of its unorthodox structure. After a number of other revisions, the concerto was premiered in Prague in 1883, with the noted young Czech violin virtuoso František Ondříček as the soloist.
With lush melodies and allusions to Czech folk tunes, the violin concerto fits squarely into Dvořák’s “Slavic” period, during which he composed works such as his 6th Symphony, the Czech Suite, the first set of Slavonic Dances, the E-flat Major String Quartet Op. 51, and the A-Major String Sextet Op. 48.
The concerto is a three-movement work, albeit with some unusual features. It opens with a vigorous orchestral “foreshadowing” theme in A minor; the passionate main theme is introduced by the solo violin a few bars later. A gentle second theme in C Major appears in the middle of the movement. The music then becomes more free-form, taking on an almost a rhapsodic quality. After a restatement of the opening theme, instead of a full recapitulation there is a short transition section featuring solo violin and woodwinds, and the music then moves without a break into the second movement.
The lyrical Adagio is an extended meditation on a free-flowing theme. It is interrupted several times by an abrupt dialogue between the solo violin and horns, later taken up by the full orchestra. The end of the movement features a novel duet between the solo violin and horns before ending in a reverent hush.
The lilting third movement is full of folk-theme references. It opens with an uplifting theme based on the furiant, a spritely Czech dance. In the middle of the movement, a slower section based on the Czech dumka makes its appearance. A final statement of the opening furiant brings the concerto to a joyous close.
Giovanni Bottesini was a renowned 19th-century double bass virtuoso, known world-wide as the “Paganini of the Double Bass.” He was born in northern Italy into a musical family, starting off his musical life by playing timpani and violin. However, when he heard of a potential bass scholarship at the Milan conservatory, he switched to double bass and within a few weeks was accepted by the conservatory.
After graduating, he started a successful career as a bass soloist and toured throughout Europe, the Americas, Egypt and Turkey. He made a number of tours to the United States starting in 1847. Bottesini had immense influence on the recognition of the double bass as a solo instrument. He composed signature virtuoso works for the instrument and significantly contributed to bass technique.
In later life, Bottesini was renowned as a conductor and composer of operas, concertos, and chamber works. He became a lifelong friend of Guiseppe Verdi and conducted the premiere of Verdi’s Aida in Cairo in 1871.
Bottesini’s Concerto No. 2 in B minor is one of his most performed solo works for the bass. Composed in 1845, the concerto uses the full range of the bass to showcase the player’s virtuosity. It has three movements, and many aspects of the concerto are operatic in character.
The opening Allegro moderato features long lyrical lines, spans the instrument from the lowest register to high harmonics, and features an extended cadenza. The lyrical second movement is an extended aria, introspective and soulful. The final Allegro is full of dash and drama. A cascading opening motif in the strings leads to a lively main theme in the bass, dramatic leaps, virtuosic passagework, and ends in a triumphant flourish.
Here’s a video of The Broadway Bach Ensemble performing the Bottesini Concerto, with Timothy Cobb as bass soloist, along with Mr. Cobb’s encore.
One of the greatest violin concerti of all time, this work was written for and premiered in 1806 by Franz Clement, one of the best-regarded violinists in Vienna. The concerto did not initially meet with much success, and was not often performed in Beethoven’s day. Later in the nineteenth century the concerto gained recognition as a truly sublime work. A key turning point was a concert given in London under the baton of none other than Felix Mendelssohn, with the young violin prodigy Joseph Joachim receiving critical acclaim and propelling the concerto to its rightful place as a masterpiece.
The concerto contains music of extraordinary power, beauty, and subtlety, and places substantial technical and musical demands on the soloist. The first movement contains three interwoven themes played first by the orchestra, repeated and embellished by the soloist. It begins in an unusual fashion with four solo timpani notes starting the opening theme; this four-note motif is played by strings, winds and percussion in over half of the bars in the first movement. A stirring orchestral introduction leads to a seemingly improvisational entrance by the solo violin. The themes are developed and expanded, with plenty of virtuosic violin passages. A calm G minor key interlude featuring bassoons and strings leads eventually to the recapitulation, solo cadenza and stirring end.
The second movement Larghetto is essentially a set of variations, featuring various sections of the orchestra and solo violin, on an 8-bar theme. It has a hymnal quality and contains some of the most ethereal music Beethoven ever wrote.
The final Rondo opens with an ebullient theme played by the soloist first in a low register, then in a very high register, before the orchestra joins in. The theme is repeated several times, with many variations and pyrotechnics by the soloist. It’s a joyous dance between orchestra and soloist, and ends with an uplifting flourish.